TNMC

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12 PM to 1 PM
Written by Andrew Newman
Directed by Stephen Hopkins

Okay, this was the episode I was expecting from last week - the mini-wrap up so to speak. A lot of loose ends get tied up here, as Jack and Gaines have a final confrontation and Jack's family finally gets rescued.

We start out where we left off last episode, with Jack and Rick fleeing from the mercenarys. Rick is shot in the arm and losing blood which is making him lightheaded and woozy. This is slowing down Jack's progress, but he refuses to leave the kid behind. Instead, they make their way slowly to where Kim and Teri are supposed to be, an old abandoned water tower on the outskirts of a lake. When they get there Jack bandages Rick's wounds, and delivers a pretty effective message about facing up to one's past mistakes. I only highlight that because I have a feeling this will be a theme throughout the second half of this season as Jack faces up to a past with the Drazen brothers.

Kim and Terri aren't there though; they've managed to get themselves lost. Even with a GPS at their disposal. Now I could probably throw in a snide comment about women, navigating, and driving here, but I'll be bigger that that; the truth speaks for itself anyway. While they're lost, Kim and Terri stumble right into the path of one of the mercenaries, and they seek refuge in an old abandoned shack nearby.

Of course, this is the first place that anybody with half a brain would look and so it doesn't take the merc long to start moving through the house. Kim and Teri crouch around the corner and prepare to blow the living hell out of the guy who suddenly gets called away by Gaines at the last minute. He leaves the shack and the girls sigh in relief. The merc probably heard all that heavy breathing, because he's smart enough to move around back and see the girls through a cubbyhole. It's only the sudden arrival of Jack that saves the girl's lives as he yells for them to get down and then proceeds to get into a gunfight which ends with the merc dead and flying through the wooden wall of the shack.

Jack is once more reunited with his family, but Gaines has heard the gunshots and begins to try and track down the Bauers with Kevin Caroll at his side.

Meanwhile, things are pretty quiet at the CTU. The big subplot there revolves around Jamie's mother and the fact that her back account has swelled by $300,000. After playing a little good cop/bad cop Nina and Tony manage to get some names out of Jamie's mother.

Palmer on the other hand has a lot going on with him. He is indignant and enraged at Farragamo's murder, and is determined to go forward with the truth. Everyone around him though, is trying to see that he doesn't. His wife, his chief-of-staff, even the intrepid reporter who was going to report the news in the first place have all backed off this story. They've been intimidated or simply realized the futility of railing at windmills. Palmer's wife urges him to become president, and once there he will have the power to take these people on. Despite all this though, Palmer's morality will not let him do that. It's not until Carl threatens Palmer about his son that he breaks. Carl will plant evidence that Palmer's son Keith is responsible for the death of Farragamo if he doesn't play ball. And here we see Palmer's weakness. He was willing to let Keith stand up to his own actions, but he will not see his son be condemned for something he didn't do. This is a darker shade of politics than you'll ever see on The West Wing, and sadly is probably more akin to the truth. Palmer's moral struggle provides a fascinating counterpoint to Jack's more physical ones.

So Jack has managed to bring his family back to the lake that the water tower overlooks without running into any enemies. But when Kim rushes toward the water tower in order to make sure Rick is okay, a bullet whizzes right near her, and Gaines and Caroll are shown on a nearby ridge, with Gaines holding a sniper rifle.

Jack realizes that it's him that Gaines wants, and urges the girls to stay there while he retreats further into the woods to deal with the pair. Kevin wants to know why they're just not fleeing since Jack undoubtedly has called into the CTU for assistance. Gaines says that you can't flee from the Drazens, and what they would do to him would be far worse than anything the CTU could dream of.

Gaines eventually manages to pin down Jack behind an oak tree, and has Caroll swing around to hit him from behind. Just then, however, choppers sound from overhead, and Kevin realizes that the CTU backup has arrived. Rather than finish the job on Bauer, he flees, leaving it as a one-on-one match-up between Gaines and Jack. Gaines still has Jack pinned down, but there's an old mirror lying nearby him, one that looks like a side mirror form a car. Jack manages to grab a hold of this, and at the right moment he manages to blind Gaines and rush forward.

Now anybody who's ever played Goldeneye knows what happens next. The sniper rifle is great from distance, but in short range it sucks horribly. Jack is able to bridge the gap and fires off shots at a fleeing Gaines, managing a solid shot in the man's hand. Gaines flees through the forest until he comes to clearing and then takes cover behind a rock. Jack slowly follows the blood trail as he and Gaines banter back and forth. Jack doesn't really want to kill Gaines, he just wants to know who's behind everything. Gaines stays hunkered behind a rock and waits for Jack to follow the blood trail into the clearing so he can get a good shot at him. Gaines doesn't know why the Drazens want Jack dead, but he knows enough to fear them. He also admits that taking Kim and Teri was unsound, but the Drazens wanted to make this personal.

Suddenly, Jack's voice sounds from behind him. He actually looped around Gaines. He's got him covered and demands that Ira stand down. Of course, Gaines knows he's going to die, but he'd rather go quickly than be tortured to death by associates of the Drazens. He forces the conflict, knowing full well that Jack will kill him, and his final words are a simple "Good luck," to Jack.

So Gaines is dead and the CTU has arrived. They take Kim and Teri into protection, but Rick is nowhere to be found. They also find Jack and place him into custody, but they're very gentle and understanding with him. We then get a brief scene of Rick staggering down to the road and climbing on bus that looks like it's headed to Mexico.

Had Fox not picked up the last eleven episodes of 24, this is undoubtedly how they would have ended it. There were a few loose ends still in the air, but a little editing would take care of those as well. But since we do have eleven episodes of goodness left, we get a little more as the story continues.

Nina and Tony have managed to track down the account of the Drazens, and have discovered that a second hitter has been brought into the game. We then cut to a mysterious garage and a power shot of mysterious man. A 'power shot', by the way, is a wide screen full body shot that's backlit, and when done effectively can make anyone short of Pee-Wee Herman come across as a badass. The figure pulls away with ominous music swelling and then the time runs out.

Though last week was the official halfway point, this is truly the end of the first arc. And what an arc it's been. If the show had ended here it still would have been considered one of the best series on TV on my personal list. We've got a great spy story combined with deep politics. For the gamers out there it's like a Metal Gear without all the annoying metaphysical crap. This is a show that really is something special, and why the story isn't exactly groundbreaking it's tightly wound and excellently executed. They didn't make a mistake when they gave Keifer the Golden Globe for his work. With this role he has firmly managed to distance himself from his 80's past and stand in this new century as an honest to god actor.

But as mentioned before we do have eleven more episodes to go. Dennis Hopper is coming on, and we've still got quite a few baddies to go. Should be ride worth taking in my book.

Episode Rating: 9 out of 10

-- Tim "tjarvis" Ritenour wonders what a 24/Alias crossover would be like.

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